Retirement Reception for Susan McKay is Friday at UW

October 31, 2011

A retirement reception for Susan McKay, a professor in the
University of Wyoming Gender and Women's Studies Program, is from 4-5:30 p.m. Friday,
Nov. 4, at the UW Alumni House. Those planning to attend should RSVP to wmst@uwyo.edu or call 766-2733.

McKay was as an assistant professor of nursing from
1966-1975, and then went into private practice as a psychologist before
returning to the UW School of Nursing in 1987. She became adjunct and then
later moved to Women's Studies (2001).

For more than two decades, she has taught and researched
issues focused on women, girls, and armed conflict, women and peacebuilding
and feminist issues in peace psychology. Her recent research (with Angela
Veale, Mike Wessells, and Miranda Worthen) in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and
Liberia embraces perspectives on sexual violence in conflicts, focusing
particularly on challenges of response programming and special vulnerabilities
of girls. In her work with young women in Africa, she addresses stigmas and
other obstacles impacting girl-mothers affected by armed conflicts.

McKay's books include
"Where Are the Girls? Girls in Fighting Forces in Northern Uganda, Sierra
Leone, and Mozambique, Their Lives During and After War" (2004); "Raising Women's Voices for Peacebuilding:
Vision, Impact, and Limitations of Media Technologies" (2001); and "Women and Peacebuilding" (1999).

Among her awards are the 1991 Nellie Tayloe Ross Woman of
Achievement Award, UW Presidential Faculty Achievement Award (2000),
Extraordinary Merit in Research (1999, 2003, 2006), and the Corann Okorodudu
International Women's Advocacy Award (2008) presented by the Society of the
Psychology of Women of the American Psychological Association. She is a Fellow
of the American Psychological Association.

Photo:Susan McKay is widely recognized for her major contributions
to understanding about women and girls in war.